This paper surveys the pre-conditions for privatisation in Estonia and the respective concepts of different governments. The paper will also identify the most important features of different legislation which have determined the path of privatisation in Estonia. The methods and results of...

We use a rich personnel data set from a Russian firm for the years 1997 to 2002 to analyze how the financial crisis in 1998 and the resulting change in external labour market conditions affect the wages and the welfare of workers inside a firm. We provide evidence that large shocks to external...

Using a firm level dataset from four regions of Russia covering 1996/97, an investigation was carried out into how the surplus created within the firm is divided between profits and wages. An efficient bargaining framework based on the work of Svejnar (1986) is employed which takes into account...

We take a retrospective look at Hungary's experiment with a particularly draconian bankruptcy law. For an eighteen-month period in 1992-93, the Hungarian bankruptcy code contained an unusual automatic trigger that required the managers of firms that held overdue debts of any size to any creditor...

A 'new version' gravity model is used to estimate the effect of de facto exchange rate regimes, as classified by Reinhart and Rogoff (2004), on bilateral trade. The results indicate that, while participation in a common currency union is typically strongly 'protrade' - as first suggested by Rose...

Since independence Ukraine has attracted very little foreign direct investment, both in absolute terms, and relative to other transition economies. This is the case when we analyse the ratio of FDI to GDP and exports, and the amount of FDI per capita. This paper examines the causes of the low...

There are diverse ideas about governance around the world, and this paper studies them through the following questions: (a) what does the available evidence tell us about the political and institutional requirements for sustained economic growth? (b) What do we need from the state to secure...

Following the initial shocks associated with the collapse of communism, and the probolems of implementing a broad range of market-oriented reforms, achieving sustained growth requires an economic environment favouring high rates of savings and investment, encouraging for foreign investors, and...

This discussion paper draws the main conclusions from a book entitled Monetary Policy at the European Periphery: Greek Experience and Lessons for EU Candidates, forthcoming in the European and Transatlantic Studies Series, Springer-Verlag. This book proposes a coherent novel monetary policy...

The interaction between: (i) political constraints, in part based on notions of “nation building,” and independence; (ii) the development of a suitable legal and regulatory environment; and (iii) economic constraints such as a growing state budget deficit and a recent banking crisis, are the...